I mean when you get that length of time, it always is. We like to pretend that we can normalize the data in such a way that we can say with some certainty that "this player from today" would "perform like this 100 years ago" or vice versa, but we really can't.

We normalize in the way of hard numbers and stats.

Bob Gibson didn't have to deal with the current professionalism of the sport. By professionalism, I don't mean player conduct, more the amount of time and money that goes into player conditioning and analysis. You just can't really tease out what that means.

Take any player from the 1960s and they may just not work within the current culture of the game. We have actually seen this happen - back in the 1960s and 1970s when major leaguers went to Japan. Major Leaguers with a lot of talent would go there and last a few months. Not because they couldn't play baseball, but because they just really couldn't work within the vastly different climate. We like to think that these things are "gimmes" and that a Hall of Fame player would without a doubt rise to the occasion and adapt and still be a Hall of Fame player, but be honest, this gets down to very human qualities and we really don't know.

Put deGrom into 1910, and he or any current day pitcher just might not be able to contend with baseballs that would stay in the game for dozens of pitches, the cover loosening or even flying off the ball. Sure they might adapt. But it isn't hard to imagine that the skillset that makes them great today just couldn't work within the conditions of a different era of the game.

Probably even more so with today's players, as the drive for specialization will by its nature pigeon-hole them so that their value is driven by 3 or 4 things where they truly exceed. If the change in how the game is played knocks one of those things off the list because it just doesn't work with the way the game is played in 1910, you might have a radically different outcome.

Very good post. I can see that if Gibson and deGrom traded eras, both would still be above average pitchers but neither would necessarily dominate.

I think that the best we could ever do with numbers is to say:
We've determined that Gibson's value to his team in 1968 was X
We've determined that deGrom's value to his team in 2021 was Y

If X and Y are fairly close, we can say with some certainty that Gibson and deGrom had similar value to their teams in winning baseball games.

You could even say something along the lines, that if someone who has the value of deGrom today pitched in 1968, a pitcher of that value might look like Bob Gibson.

None of those logical statements even come close to saying that if we actually took deGrom out of 2021 and Gibson out of 1968 and swapped them that we have a good indication of what numbers they would produce.

I think we can create something that's good enough for OOTP or good for fun fan-banter, but there's just way too many unknowns within the game and outside.

Without getting too butterfly-effect, I think these are all very plausible situations that wouldn't remotely be covered by statistical analysis.

1. Put deGrom in 1910 and throwing maximum velocity doesn't top out in the high nineties due to the culture of the game dictating that pitchers need to go 9 innings most of the time. With his other skills, he becomes a major league shortstop or third baseman. He might not become a pitcher in that era that strikes out more than the average guy.

2. Put Gibson in 2021 and he plays for the Toronto Raptors because he was also a talented basketball player and the popularity and money in pro basketball has grown considerably since the 1950s when he would have been making a choice.

ERA leaders require 162 innings pitched. This is less than 5 innings for 33 starts.

If you put deGrom in 1968 he has no career at all because Tommy John surgery has yet to be invented. ;)

That's a great point there too. And consider that we're probably reaching the point that substantial portions of major league staffs today having an injury that from 1871-1975 would have essentially ended their career.

I recently looked up some articles on Don Robinson, and he had Tommy John around 1985-ish. At that point it wasn't even called Tommy John Surgery yet, it was still "the procedure that allowed Tommy John to come back and pitch" and the count of players who had it was about 10 pitchers. Better totals say that there were 12 surgeries on MLB players from 1974-1994. From 2000-2011, there were 39 pitchers a year having the surgery.

Think about how that affects the stats in ways that we really can't compensate for. You have pitchers today in college, minors and majors that throw in ways that never would have been allowed by pitching coaches prior to the 21st century because it would have meant risking a complete and total loss of the player.

So who's to say what a Koufax, Feller or Gibson (or Grove or Walter Johnson) would have done under this methodology of "screw it, just keep throwing as hard as you can and if your arm explodes, we'll just surgically repair it."

That's a discussion that can't be solved with stats anymore. Like the question "Would Mark Fidrych be in the Hall of Fame and still alive if he had enjoyed access to 2000s' diagnostics and repair capabilities?"

I agree. But more importantly, Look at just your singular issue without any other issues involved.

It already muddies the water to such a point that trying to predict what a pitcher from today would do in 1950 and vice versa just doesn't work if you go beyond pure numbers and try to inject the reality of changing culture and science into the mix.

PEEEEEEETE 3, Orioles 10 - F

Stinker.

"Punching Bag" Peterson has what, a 24+ ERA in his last three starts? I'd send him to bushwhackers ball in Steamboat Springs, Colo., but the Mets are gonna need every arm still attached to a shoulder socket for the barrage of double-headers coming up.

Mets have played 53 games. Outside their division, which partook in a lot of their non-playing ways in April, only the Blue Jays and Indians have played as few as 58 games.

I hope da Mets will make the play offs :flowers:

Yeah, Peterson just has not had anything this year at all. I think Jerad Eichhoff (not on the 40 and really just a different warm body that would likely have a 6.50 ERA) and Tom Szapucki are the only guys in the minors who could step into the rotation right now.

They have ex-prospect Franklyn Kilome in AAA too, but he's walked more than he's struck out at AAA right now. So not someone I would trust in the bigs.

Matt Harvey (7.41 ERA) appears to be another pitcher who has his career ended by the Mets.

I just wish the schedule would have aligned for me to watch *this* game, not Tuesday's stinker. :(

deGrom contributed a two-run single in the fifth to give him more RBIs (five) than earned runs allowed (four) this season. He is the first pitcher since RBIs became an official stat in 1920 to have more RBIs than earned runs allowed over any 10-start span in a single season, according to STATS.

He also left the game with discomfort once again, so please stand back while I pour these two foaming liquids together for a beverage that will knock me out for four days, a.k.a. until his next scheduled start... :closedeyes:

His WAR must be through the roof!
Now, now. Look at all the Amazin' Mets action you would miss!

Ugh, Lucchesi.

(marks an L in his pocket schedule)

Ugh, Familia.

(marks an L in his pocket schedule)

What about Peterson?

I already marked an L for tonight.

Hope you wrote in pencil! :P